While it still blows my mind that light has weight, it also still causes me to stop and think that information has value and that our information can demand a high cost. Companies regularly mine our internet browsing history to see where we have been to predict where we might go in our internet searches. But have we lost the difference between cost and value? It has been often remarked upon here and elsewhere how we give away our personal data or data exhaust as it is called, making us believe that there is no value to our information. It is something like the exhaust from our cars that needs to be taken away and dealt with like a crying child throwing a tantrum in a museum. And yet, this very stone which we have rejected becomes the cornerstone of so many company’s existences. If Google couldn’t track our data, how would they know how to market to us, to tell us what we needed, what we should value, what we should want and how to get it? In short, we give them things which we are told have no value and then they to use these things, our opinions and our interests to determine what we should pay for what we are told we should want.

It seems that what we value we are no longer willing to pay for and what we pay for what we no longer value. We pay money for products that we know we will have to replace in a year or less as they will have no value left and pay money to get people to look, click or follow a website. We pursue a vapor we value but at what cost?

“I knew you were going to say that!”, is something that my wife occasionally says to me, either due to my predictability (possibly) or (hopefully, more likely) that we have known each other for so long we know how each other thinks. This kept ringing in my ears as I read “The Isles Have Eyes” a tremendous new book by Joseph Turow. Turow details the way in which our long tail of data is being gathered, used to predict our behavior and to market to us without our knowing how much we are being manipulated. It seems that in time our phones or possibly an implanted device will tell marketers which stores we go to, what we buy and try to anticipate our needs by sending us messages either to remind us a product we have purchased before or give us coupons or discounts to persuade us to purchase a product. This may happen online but we can also be targeted in brick and mortar stores and possibly in our homes. It seems that we are turning into pawns in an electronic chess game where the winner gets our money.
Yes, the internet was going to shut down the brick and mortar stores and we were all supposed to do all our shopping online but that does not seem to be the case. Why else would brick and mortar stores go to such lengths to predict our behavior and profit from it? It seems that some brick and mortar stores are actually thriving and giving higher satisfaction than usual. If shopping is all about the experience will we want to be guided electronically through the store, like a blind man through the snow or be allowed to make our own decisions free from electronic insight?